A league source tells me that his agent, Rich Paul, has already made it clear to the Cleveland Cavaliers that Thompson will not sign a long-term deal unless it is a max deal. And otherwise, he is prepared to sign a one-year qualifying offer with the additional knowledge, according to the source, that Paul believes that he can get a max deal with the Raptors next summer.

I don’t think Thompson is worth a max contract in a vacuum, even accounting for the skyrocketing salary cap. He’s an excellent rebounder, versatile defender and can score near the rim. But he has little shooting range and doesn’t protect the rim as well as he should.

Of course, Thompson and Cleveland don’t operate in a vacuum.

If the Cavaliers lose Thompson, they won’t have cap space to sign a near-equal outside replacement. They can keep Thompson only because they have his Bird Rights. That gives Thompson considerable leverage, only somewhat related to his production.

Maybe Thompson would ultimately settle for less than the max before the Oct. 1 deadline to accept the qualifying offer, but there’s little reason to do so now. Thompson should posture that he wants the max. Maybe the Cavs will blink first. If Thompson compromises, he should wait a month to do so. (Knowing that, Cleveland will be loathe to up its offer any time soon.)

Simply waiting will get Thompson further than this Toronto threat. Maybe the Raptors are interested in Thompson, a native Canadian. They could improve at power forward, but they don’t project to have enough cap space to offer Thompson the max. The easiest way for them to clear salary is DeMar DeRozan opting out, but that would create a hole on the wing that should take precedent over a power forward upgrade.

Plus, a max for Thompson next summer – when the new national TV contracts kick in – will be much higher. It’s one thing for the capped-out Cavaliers to pay him more than $94 million. It’s another for a team with cap room to pursue any free agent to pay him more than $89 million over four years.

If Dan Gilbert is willing to spend the real dollars – and it seems the Cavaliers owner is – paying Thompson the max is justifiable cap-wise. Paul knows this, and he’s clearly not giving the Cavs a break. Paul has already threatened that, if Thompson accepts the qualifying offer, the forward will leave Cleveland next summer. If Paul is floating the Raptors as a potential destination, that’s probably just an attempt to worry the Cavaliers a little more.

Maybe the Cavaliers, to avoid losing Thompson for nothing, just give him the max now.

If they don’t, Paul will surely try a different method to convince them to do it.

Only 8.9 percent of his shots came from three (and he shot just 28.9 percent on them, although that jumped to 34 percent after the All-Star break). Instead, 56.6 percent of DeRozan’s shots came between 10 feet out and the arc, and he shot just below 38 percent on those. While the league-wide pushback on midrange jumpers can get taken too far, if you’re going to take them you better make them. Nobody complains about Dirk Nowitzki’s midrange shots — more than 60 percent of his shots are from 10 feet to the three-point line, but he hits nearly 48 percent of them. DeRozan is dynamic when he can attack the rim, but if there are obstacles in his way he too easily settles for a midrange jumper he does not hit.

“(NBA three-point leader) Kyle Korver told me the three-point shot is just more repetition. The more you shoot it, the better you’ll get at it. I feel like if DeMar will keep working on it, it will eventually come,” Carroll said…

“I’m pretty sure there’s a lot of other things he worked on in his game and he’s a dominant offensive player (already),” Carroll said. “So I think if he adds that three-point to his game it’ll take us over the top.”

The Raptors have overhauled their roster to become more defensive minded — that’s why Carroll was their top free agent target. They wanted a quality wing defender, and they got one of the best.

With this new roster look for even more threes — the Raptors were ninth in the NBA in three-pointers attempted last season and made a respectable 35.2 percent of them (12th in the NBA). If, as expected, Toronto starts Kyle Lowry, DeRozan, Carroll, and Patrick Patterson around Jonas Valanciunas, that’s potentially four three-point shooters on the floor around a big who demands a double in the post. Throw in a quicker pace (the Raptors were bottom 10) and the chance to get a few more threes in transition, and the Raptors could be bombs away from deep this season. Which will be a good thing, especially if DeRozan knocks them down.

The Raptors needed to make changes, their unimpressive first-round playoff exit (and the second half of last season) made that clear. But transitions are rarely smooth, and there are going to be some bumps early on for the Raptors as their focus shifts. Especially if those threes don’t fall for a stretch.

Valanciunas is good, has a strong track of improvement and, at age 23, should continue to develop.

It wouldn’t have been the least bit surprising to see him get a max contract (projected to be worth more than $93 million) as a restricted free agent next summer. So many teams will have cap space to burn with the salary cap skyrocketing.

Valanciunas is already one of the NBA’s best low-post scorers. If he progresses defensively – and Dwane Casey is the right coach to help him – Valanciunas could anchor one heck of a team in Toronto.

Kyle Lowry is the Raptors’ unquestioned leader right now, and DeMar DeRozan and DeMarre Carroll are important cogs. But Valanciunas’ youth adds tremendous value.

Toronto has a team that can win now and in the future. Locking Valanciunas into a relatively cheap deal should only help them add pieces down the road.

For him, the guarantee of $64 million is life-changing money. The chance at more as a free agent obviously didn’t appeal as much as the security of this extension.

Rivers certainly doesn’t lack confidence – which is his biggest problem as a player. He too often takes bad shots or dribbles into trouble, because he believes he’s good enough to handle it.

This tweet gives little hope he better grasps his limitations.

To be fair, Rivers has improved each of his three NBA seasons. How dreadful he was as a rookie certainly plays a part, but Rivers has made nice progress. Most Improved Player is a good goal for him.

The rest is nonsense.

Maybe – maybe – Rivers is better than Watson, a non-Team USA minicamper invited to fill out the roster. But a lot of those dudes? It’s just insulting to them, which Rivers seemed to realize before he went further:

Didn't really mean it that way…I worded It wrong…it was me just being competitive and wanting to be out there. https://t.co/HaNbapYqRA

It was a meaningless exhibition that had less defense then your Saturday morning pickup game at the Y. Or a Chinese league game. Or a Summer League game. If you catch an NFL preseason game this weekend, you’ll see more defense. I think you get the point.

Still, there were some entertaining moments out of the USA Basketball exhibition game Thursday night in Las Vegas — and everybody got out healthy, which is what really matters.

Andre Drummond seemed to take things more seriously and had 27 points and 16 rebounds. I kept thinking of Apollo Creed’s trainer in Rocky: “He doesn’t know it’s a damn show! He thinks it’s a damn fight!” Aside that DeMarcus Cousins made some plays on his birthday, Victor Oladipo and Blake Griffin made some plays, and a good time was had by all.

The guy who had the roughest night? DeMar DeRozan. The Raptors wing missed a lot of jumpers on a night when nobody was contesting them. Then Klay Thompson did this to him.

I didn’t know Thompson had that in him, although he may want to work a little on the alley-oop pass at the end.